Ishrat case: Gujarat high court to set up Special Investigation Team

The Supreme Court (SC) asked the Gujarat high court on Monday to consider setting up a special investigating team (SIT) to probe the “encounter” killing of Ishrat Jahan in 2004.

The 19-year-old Mumbai resident was allegedly gunned down along with Javed Ghulam Sheikh alias Pranesh Kumar Pillai, Amjad Ali alias Rajkumar Akbar Ali Rana and Jisan Johar Abdul Gani by the trigger-happy sleuths of the Gujarat crime branch near Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004.

An inquiry conducted by judge Tamang held on September 7, 2009, that it was a “fake” encounter executed in cold blood by police for personal benefits.

Ishrat’s mother Jamina Kausar had approached HC seeking a CBI inquiry, but her plea was rejected. HC asked an SC-appointed SIT headed by RK Raghavan to take up the case.

But SIT expressed inability to conduct the inquiry.

Gopinath Pillai, father of Javed Ghulam Sheikh, had also sought a CBI inquiry.

Gujarat Police had earlier claimed that Ishrat and three others were Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operatives on a mission to kill chief minister Narendra Modi.

They said the encounter was carried out based on specific inputs from central intelligence that LeT was planning attacks in various parts of the country, including Gujarat.

The Centre, in an affidavit filed in SC, had stated that Javed was in regular touch with LeT operatives to carry out a terrorist strike in Gujarat.